The billionaire space race 🚀
July 19 - 23, 2021
GetSmart: the post office used to be less strict on what could be sent through the mail
NewsBites
Sanctions imposed on Cuba: President Biden announced sanctions against the Cuban Minister of Defense and another government entity on Thursday for their role in suppressing the anti-government protests that occurred on July 11. The White House said it’s looking for “creative ways” to restore internet access on the island which has been largely disabled by the Cuban government.
Critical Race Theory: Amid a flood of protests and large attendance at school board meetings across the U.S., the Department of Education has walked back its initial policy of encouraging schools to implement critical race theory across their curriculums. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, said, “This program... will not dictate or recommend specific curriculum be introduced or taught in classrooms. Those decisions are – and will continue to be – made at the local level.”
Context: Learn about critical race theory in our previous Memo here.
China denies WHO request: China has denied the WHO’s proposal for the next phase of investigations into the origins of the coronavirus. As part of the second phase, the WHO is requesting access to raw patient data before and after the outbreak, something it wasn’t allowed to examine during its first visit to Wuhan in January. China’s deputy health minister said the request shows "disrespect for common sense and arrogance toward science,” and indicated China will not cooperate.
DACA Court Ruling: A federal judge has ruled the Obama Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is unconstitutional. In a nearly 80-page statement, the judge wrote, “As popular as this program might be, the proper origination point for the DACA program was, and is, Congress.” DACA was enacted in 2012 to protect children from deportation who were brought into the country illegally.
Context: After congress failed to pass the ‘Dream Act’ in 2012, President Obama signed the DACA executive memorandum.
Covid-19 daily new cases have increased in the U.S. over the past few weeks, with the Delta variant accounting for more than 80% of all new cases, and concentrated among unvaccinated individuals. The average number of new cases is around 40k per day, up from about 12k at the end of June. For perspective, during the peak of the winter wave, the U.S. was registering more than 200k cases per day. Hospitalizations have moved higher as well.
Vaccinations: 68% of U.S. adults (18-years and older) have had at least one dose of the vaccine, and ~90% of those over the age of 65 have received at least one dose.
Wildfires in the West: Dozens of wildfires are burning thousands of acres in the western part of the U.S., with high temperatures, drought conditions and winds driving the spread of the fires and sending smoke pollution as far as the East Coast. While thousands have been evacuated, no one has died thus far. Oregon’s Bootleg fire has burned some 400,000 acres, more than half the size of the entire state of Rhode Island. It’s on pace to become the third largest wildfire in the state’s history. The Bootleg fire was ignited by lightning strikes, officials have said.
Eric Clapton: The famous rock musician made it clear this week that he will not play at venues that require vaccination for attendance. In a statement released online, Clapton said, “I wish to say that I will not perform on any stage where there is a discriminated audience present. Unless there is provision made for all people to attend, I reserve the right to cancel the show.”
Context: Clapton’s comments come after UK’s PM Boris Johnson said that proof of vaccination must be shown in order to enter music venues and clubs in the UK.
Olympics: The olympic opening ceremony director, Kentaro Kobayashi, was fired on Thursday after a video of him from the 1990s was discovered. In a comedy sketch, performed 23-years ago, Koboyashi joked “let’s play Holocaust!” to his co-host as they performed a bit. Following the discovery, he was immediately dismissed. The Olympics has seen a slew of planning members removed due to comments they made in the past.
Context: The opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics begin tonight (Friday).
White House
White House Calls on Facebook to Remove Covid “Misinformation”
What happened?
In a press conference last Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the federal government has “increased disinformation research and tracking,” adding that “we're flagging problematic posts on Facebook that spread disinformation.”
When asked about Facebook following the press conference, President Biden responded saying, “They’re killing people...the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.” (video) Biden recently clarified his comments saying that he didn’t mean that Facebook was killing people, but rather, that a few unnamed popular accounts on Facebook are killing people by spreading their opinions on the vaccine and other items.
What is “misinformation”? The word misinformation has been used a lot in relation to the pandemic. Although it is rarely defined, the current White House would generally classify it as content that goes against the U.S. CDC on items such as masks, the safety of the vaccines, and the death rate of the coronavirus.
Snapshot opinions
Facebook, the social media giant that was founded in 2004 is currently being hit by all sides - accused by Democrats of not doing enough to remove users and posts that go against the CDC, while Republicans accuse them of censoring opinions and limiting the first amendment right to free speech.
Ted Cruz: The White House is “going to monopolists and saying, ‘You are our tool to censor views we disagree with.”
President Biden: “Think about that misinformation going to your son, your daughter, your relative, someone you love.”
Facebook responds
In a blog post on their company website titled, Moving Past the Finger Pointing, Facebook fired back at the Biden Administration saying, “the Biden administration has chosen to blame a handful of American social media companies. While social media plays an important role in society, it is clear that we need a whole of society approach to end this pandemic.”
SPACE
Jeff Bezos Goes to “Space” in First All-Civilian Flight
Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon and currently the world’s richest man ($215B), flew to the edge of space on Tuesday aboard Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket and capsule. It was the first all-civilian flight to space, with no operating pilots on board.
It was a suborbital flight (explainer) that took the crew up about 65 miles to the edge of space, and lasted about 10 minutes in total. After reaching its peak altitude, parachutes were deployed on the outside of the capsule to bring it back to Earth.
Bezos was joined on the flight by his brother Mark, along with Wally Funk (an 82-year-old retired NASA test pilot) and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old Dutch student, who became the youngest person to go to space.
More: Post-flight interview with Jeff and Mark Bezos.
Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos’ private space company which is headquartered in Van Horn, Texas.
The flight occurred just 9 days after billionaire Richard Branson also completed a suborbital flight with his private space company, Virgin Galactic (video).
Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft was guided by two pilots, whereas Blue Origin’s was an autonomous flight.
Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic want to make space a tourism business, in what has been called the “billionaire's space race.” They hope to launch regular crewed flights to space over the next 18 months. Tickets will likely cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is also planning an all-civilian tourism flight sometime this year. In the case of SpaceX, the spacecraft would travel fast enough to actually enter the Earth’s orbit.
Why it matters
Bezos and Branson going to space represents a broader renewed interest in space exploration and tourism, this time driven by private companies instead of the U.S. government. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been the leader in the push, sending multiple crews of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station over the past year.
The reason for exploring space is multifold. Some companies aim to manufacture goods in space, others aim to mine minerals such as nickel in space, and others are focused on space tourism. SpaceX and Elon Musk’s ultimate goal is to make humans a multiplanetary species by colonizing Mars.
GetSmart
📬 Parents Used to Send Their Babies to Grandmas Using the Post Office
In 1913, some parents took advantage of the post office’s new innovation: the ability to send large packages and parcels through the mail. One of those couples was Jesse and Mathilda Beagle from Ohio who “mailed” their 8-month old son James to grandma's house (just a few miles away). Fortunately, James weighed just under the 11 pound limit (photo). The post office officially banned the ability to send children through the mail in June of 1920.
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